An integrated toolset for engineering software configurations

Abstract

Configuration management in toolkit oriented software development environments (SDE), such as the UNIX system, is a long standing nuisance. Mostly, one has to face the choice between poorly or not at all integrated, independent tools, or highly integrated, most specialized, and often language dependent environments. The first choice offers very limited support for a complex task that needs a broad informational basis. The second choice often takes away the programmers' most cherished tools, forces him to adopt some different work discipline, and thereby eventually restricts his creativity. The toolset described in this paper integrates a dedicated version control system and shape, a significantly enhanced Make [Feld79a] program, on the basis of a common object model. This object model comprises multiple versions of software objects as well as conventional file system objects. Taking this approach made it possible to have a sufficiently integrated toolsystem for engineering software configurations while retaining the flexibility of the basic toolbox philosophy, permitting the use of 'off-the-shelf' tools, e.g. editors or compilers.